By Joel Goldenberg
The Suburban

The Azrieli Clinic for the Neurodivergent Community, where medical and dental services are being provided for adults with intellectual disabilities and/or an autism spectrum disorder, was officially launched April 2 with a ribbon-cutting ceremony and press conference in Côte St. Luc. The CIUSSS West-Central Montreal facility, located at the CLSC René Cassin at Quartier Cavendish, is the first of its type in Montreal, in terms of providing both medical and dental services for the specific clientele at the same site. The clinic opened this past December.

Social Services Minister Lionel Carmant thanked all those involved in the project, particularly the Azrieli Foundation.”By offering adapted medical and dental care to adults with an intellectual disability and/or an autism spectrum disorder, the Azrieli Clinic is significantly improving access to front-line services for this clientele,” he added.

Dr. Lawrence Rosenberg, president and CEO of the CIUSSS West-Central Montreal, said “certain patients have special needs that are not being met. As the clinic demonstrates, a need was identified and the means were found to ensure they will receive care of superior quality. The project is also aligned with our CIUSS’s philosophy of ‘care, everywhere.’”

Naomi Azrieli, CEO of the Azrieli Foundation, stated that “we are guided by the belief that every person deserves to live a full life to the best of their ability….The inauguration of this clinic is a dream come true.” The Foundation also announced it is funding a dental clinic at the Montreal General Hospital for the neurodivergent community.

Dr. Richard Reznick of the Azrieli Foundation, who was at the launch, said the clinic is the result of nine years of hard work by all the partners, including the Foundation, the CIUSSS West-Central Montreal and the Jewish General Hospital Foundation.”Medical and dental healthcare for neurodivergent individuals has remained an unmet need for too long,” he said. “What’s created here represents a better way to deliver healthcare to this population.”

The clinic is unique in that clients can be treated on an out-patient basis whereas they might otherwise be treated in hospital emergency departments or even admitted. As well, appointments are longer, from 45 minutes to an hour rather than what would ordinarily be 15 minutes.The clinic is open Monday to Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and services are covered by Medicare,

D’Arcy McGee MNA Elisabeth Prass, the Official Opposition Critic for Persons Living with a Disability or with Autism Spectrum Disorder, and who has a 10-year-old son on the autism spectrum, also attended the press conference and ceremony.

She told The Suburban that the CIUSSS West-Central Montreal is “doing a wonderful job at being innovative, and speaking to a population that, unfortunately, is often not taken care of in the right way. So to see projects like this come to life and possibly be recreated across the city and the province is a wonderful thing for the autism and intellectual disability community, especially, today [April 2], is World Autism Awareness Day. There couldn’t be a better time to demonstrate that we’re a society that takes care of our most vulnerable. It’s a wonderful thing for Montreal.”

Prass also wrote an opinion piece in Le Journal de Montréal for World Autism Awareness Day that the occasion is “an opportunity to celebrate the countless contributions of people with autism spectrum disorder to our families and communities, and to highlight the systemic barriers to inclusion that people with ASD face on a daily basis. As the mother of a young child with autism spectrum disorder I have a personal understanding of the challenges our children and we face as parents.” The MNA wrote that her family has had access to respite services on some days of the week, which “allows parents and caregivers to have precious time for themselves and to recharge their batteries. “In our case, to have access to government-subsidized respite services, we must first register on a waiting list to receive blocks of time from our CIUSSS, to then register on the waiting lists of services from organizations that offer respite. It’s long and dizzying.

Prass added that the Azrieli Clinic would be a win-win for parents and children. n